On January 22, 2015, the Financial Times have published a letter signed by eighteen economists, including Nobel Laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Chris Pissarides (GEfR founding member). The letter argues that Europe will benefit from Greece being given a fresh start. The authors start from the premise that Greece’s debt is clearly unsustainable and that an economy cannot grow out of recession and keep a reasonable growth path when it has to make repayments (mostly abroad) for a debt as large as Greece’s. They suggest ways of easing the burden of the debt without default and without any other reneging on Greece’s obligations to its lenders. Their suggestions include postponement of the debt until Greece’s growth rate rises to 3% and until Greece recovers half of its lost income; providing more resources for public investments; writing off parts of the debt after bilateral agreements with official lenders, and other similar suggestions.

The shadow economy is inversely related with the per capita electronic payments in the European countries. The Greek economy is characterized by a surging shadow economy and one of the lower numbers of per capita electronic payments in Europe. Manthos Delis, Professor at Surrey Business School, argues that the Greek economy stands to gain a lot in terms of increased fiscal revenue if it manages to increase the electronic payments to a number close to that of the more transparent European countries. He also proposes a number of ways through which this policy can be implemented. Read more (in Greek)

In a full-page interview in the Greek newspaper “Kathimerini” on Sunday, January 11, 2015, Michael Haliassos describes where the Greek adjustment program of the past five years has gone wrong, and why Greece has no room for creating further uncertainties and risk for the euro zone. With regard to the latter issue, if Greece creates uncertainty about its commitments to reforms and to the euro, it is likely to be asked to choose between accepting harsh measures and staying; or leaving the euro and the EU and surviving on its own. It can no longer “threaten” to do the latter, as it has come to be considered a “special case” that is not of systemic importance. Greece should go on with the reforms necessary to create productive potential instead of creating uncertainty among other euro zone countries. Read the article.

Strategic plans are used to scope out the strengths and weaknesses of the Research
& Development (R&D) enterprise, identify areas where critical mass exists to enable rapid progress and innovation, promote and strengthen connections of the research establishment with the entrepreneurial community, and allocate investments in a fair and competitive manner. Such plans are designed to promote advancement of science, technology and innovation in any knowledge-based society that aspires to high level technological accomplishments and rapid and sustained economic growth.
The National Council on Research and Technology for the period October 2010-2013 identified the development of a Strategic Plan as an important priority
upon its appointment in the fall of 2010 and a draft plan was completed in the fall of 2013. The plan was based on input from the research community and from the innovation sector over a two-year period. This proposed plan was officially released in August 2014, as potential but non-binding input to the current design efforts, carried out by the Ministry of Education and by the current members of the National Council on Research and Technology. The principal goal of the strategic plan is the identification of areas of strength and excellence that can be further advanced and can become engines for progress and growth.
The published version of the proposal can be found here.

In an article in ESTIA, Prof. Nicholas Economides discusses how issuing new bonds and using the moneys exclusively for investment will solve the Greek sovereign debt problem. Additionally he proposes reducing interest rates and making them constant, as well as lengthening the debt maturity of 75 years. Read more…

Professor Nicholas Economides of the Stern School of Business NYU and the Haas School of Business UC Berkeley presented on May 28, 2014 at KEPE his proposals for the reduction of the Greek public debt, growth, and structural reforms for the Greek economy. Read More…

I want to start by comparing the evolution of Greek GDP, after the onset of the crisis, first with Portugal and Ireland, the other two Eurozone countries that also received assistance from the Troika. I don’t need to belabor the severity of the crisis to this audience, but “a picture is worth a thousand words!” It is comparably severe to the US Great Depression, 1929–1938, and much more severe to the Finnish Great Depression of 1990–1997. I will explain why these comparisons are important. But crises do end, with help from policy, and we know from past and recent experience that when they end the economy looks quite different. Continue reading →

The sources of the fiscal crisis have been different, but the prescribed measures amount to two: achieve budget surpluses to start reducing the size of the debt, and undertake the necessary reforms to create or boost the productive base, so as to make repayment of the debt possible and compatible with acceptable living standards. If we manage to hit only the first bird, the other may well fly away. Read More…

This is a talk delivered at the Megaron Plus event on Unemployment and Growth, which was organized by Lucas Papademos and took place in Athens on May 12, 2014.